Q: Can you give me a few tips on how to select hardwood floors for our renovation?

A: Timeless beauty, clean lines, strength and durability as well as the ease of cleaning and the classic look make hardwood flooring the perfect choice for your home.

No matter what your personal style is, there is a flooring choice for you because of the unlimited selection available. But before you rush out shopping for your hardwood flooring, keep these tips in mind.

Set a budget for yourself. Having a wide variety of flooring to choose from is great, but the downside is that it is easy to get overwhelmed quickly, and this makes you very susceptible to overspending. Remember to balance style with quality with your budget when you make your final choice.

Tip #1

You will be wise to match the room with your choice of flooring, whether hardwood or otherwise. For example, while it’s not off limits to select hardwood flooring in a bathroom, due to the high levels of moisture a bathroom receives; many homeowners opt for stone options, which in turn adds a natural elegance to the room.

Tip #2

Different areas of the house demand different types of wood. For example, consider the hardness of the material you select based on the amount and type of traffic you expect in a given room. If you know you’ll have a host of stilettos milling about in your new kitchen, you probably want to select a harder wood to avoid indentations that some homeowners have encountered all-too-late.

A great way to check the “hardness” of your hardwood flooring is to refer to the Janka Rating Scale, which can be found in full or in part (like the one here) to show various types of woods compared to others for hardness. The higher the number, the higher the “hardness” for each wood.

Here is a list of common wood types in North America:

Tip #3

Choose a hardwood flooring that has an appropriate finish to match your lifestyle. A sitting room that is seldom used will let you get away with a lighter finish. However a hallway or living room will get continual traffic and requires a choice that offers a tougher finish that can stand up to a lot of wear and tear.

Choosing the color and style of the floor can be the fun part. Choose a hardwood that fits your personal taste and your lifestyle. Let ACo help guide you through the hardwood selection process. Our mission is to ensure your satisfaction with every aspect of your home renovations when it comes to the materials you have added to your home.